The concept has been around for a while, and now a campaign group are running a UK trial with 60 companies. Here we explore the benefits, and highlight some things to watch out for.
It feels like the four-day week is a concept whose time has come. In the wake of the pandemic, companies of all shapes and sizes have been exploring how changes to working arrangements can support productivity, wellbeing and inclusion, and help navigate the Great Resignation. And now, 90 or so years after the establishment of the two-day weekend, there’s a growing feeling that working less may be the solution.
Into this space has come the four-day week campaign, part of a global movement championing the benefits of this arrangement. June 2022 sees the launch of a sixth-month UK pilot trialling the move to a four-day, 32-hour week, with no loss of pay; 60 companies, including over 3000 workers, will be taking part. And we, like many organisations, will be watching with interest.
Our interest in the four-day week is longstanding; we believe that, implemented carefully, it can be hugely beneficial on many levels. We have the experience to back up this view; we have recently been working with leaders in the tech, and retail sectors to trial it within their organisations. And we have celebrated companies who have successfully implemented the four-day week through our annual Power List.
But we are also well aware that, alongside the many positives, there are some potential issues and pitfalls that employers need be aware of if this kind of arrangement is to be a success. So here’s a summary of how a four-day week could benefit your organisation – and the challenges you’ll need to tackle to make it work.
There’s widespread agreement on the benefits of working less, both for employers and their employees, and feedback from companies which have trialled the four-day week is overwhelmingly positive. It has been seen to lower stress levels, sickness and absence and improve work-life balance, wellbeing and motivation. It can also boost talent attraction and retention and, by taking some of the stigma away from working less, could support female progression and so help close the gender pay gap.
Additionally, a November 2021 Henley Business School white paper noted that businesses that offer a 4- day week have reduced costs while at least maintaining the quality of the work produced. And there are strong arguments for the environmental benefits, with one assessment suggesting that moving to a four-day week by 2025 could reduce the UK’s emissions by 127 million tonnes.
However, it’s important to remember that these benefits will disappear if the four-day week is implemented badly. So it’s critical that leaders and managers makes sure that an employee’s workload is achievable within the four days available.
This is particularly relevant because there is evidence that the pandemic has led to an increase in the number of people working excessive hours. As IES Director Tony Wilson highlighted on Twitter, overemployment (that is, people who want to work fewer hours, and are prepared to take a pay cut to achieve it) is at 3.5 million, a record high. And the rise in work creep during the pandemic was so marked that it triggered calls for a legal right to disconnect.
So before trying to implement an arrangement in which people work less, leaders need to put in place a culture in which boundaries are respected within existing jobs, and robust dialogue between managers and their teams around quantity and quality of work is encouraged. And crucially, people’s jobs need to be designed to fit the hours available to carry them out.
Shifting from a five-day week to a four-day one, across an organisation, is not straightforward, and there are some operational challenges that need clarifying. For example:
The four-day week campaign are clear with their definition: they refer to a 100-80-100 arrangement, in which employees receive 100% pay for working 80% hours while delivering 100% performance.
This is not the same as compressed hours (for example, working four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour ones, for the same pay) which is a completely different arrangement, and one which brings very different challenges. So employers need to understand, and be open about, what they are offering under the four-day umbrella.
If full-timers move from a five-day week to a four-day one, what happens to those who already work less than five days (and are paid accordingly)?
The four-day week campaign suggest, and we agree, that a four-day part-timer should either continue to work their four days with an uplift in pay, or reduce their hours by a similar proportion to their full-time colleagues without a decrease in salary.
And while that seems reasonable, it becomes more complicated for employers who are working three or two days a week, and is likely to have a bigger impact on deliverability than it does for full-time colleagues. None of this is surmountable, but it has to be carefully considered, robustly implemented, and tightly managed.
Depending on how client-facing your organisation is, you may prefer to stagger people’s days, so you have a full week covered, rather than giving everyone in your team the same day off. If you opt for the former, you’ll need to take care to make it fair (how do you decide who gets which day off?) and have a plan for communication that takes into account people’s varying days.
These challenges shouldn’t be a barrier to implementing a four-day week – but they do need to be considered before you start, and planned and executed well. It’s also important to remember that what works for another business might not work for you; when it comes to the four-day week, there really is no one-size-fits-all.
In the interests of fairness, a four-day week is not something that can be allocated to some employees and not others. If you want to avoid a two-tier workforce, split into four-day week haves and have-nots, it has to be implemented organisation-wide.
However, that does raise some big questions about how it can be managed for frontline employees, particularly those in shift-based or service-focused roles or those who produce. It can be done – for example, nurses already work 36-hour shift patterns across seven-day rosters – but there may be a need to plug reduced hours across a schedule with extra resource, which is likely to come at a cost.
And there is also a watchout regarding employees who are paid by the hour, many of whom are on relatively low wages and so seeking to work as many hours as possible. Whilst being paid the same for working fewer hours is of course a positive outcome, they are more likely than most to seek to fill the time with extra work, which would negate any wellbeing benefits.
This latter point is part of a much wider conversation about pay, and not one we can solve here – but it’s worth bearing in mind, nonetheless.
Let’s be clear; this kind of structural shift isn’t cost-free, and will require an investment of both time and money to get right. That shouldn’t be enough to put you off; given the positive impact it is likely to bring to your organisation, it would be money well spent. And we can say this with confidence, given that our own recent research has proved that there is a positive ROI for implementing flexible working arrangements.
But it’s important to be realistic about the additional costs you will incur up front, and to allocate the resources that a change of this magnitude deserves.
Overall, then, the four-day week is an intriguing prospect, which could be hugely beneficial to employers and employees alike. But – and it’s a big but – it’s not a quick fix, and doing it badly would be worse than not doing it at all. We’ll be watching the progress of the trial with great interest – and will be tracking the longer-term impact as it becomes more embedded into UK workplace norms.
Published May 2022
By Emma Stewart, Development Director, Timewise
The government consultation into ‘Making flexible working the default’, launched in September 2021, was welcomed by individuals and groups across the spectrum. Unfortunately, however, the legislation that would have brought it to life has been postponed. The employment bill in which it would have been included did not appear in the 2022 Queen’s Speech, and at the time of writing, it’s not clear when time will be found for it.
Clearly, this is disappointing for all of us who have an interest in making workplaces fairer and more flexible. As Ann Francke, head of the CMI, noted in the Financial Times, “Many parts of the bill have risen to even greater prominence in the pandemic, making the rights to a modern workplace more important for marginalised groups such as women, and those from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minorities. This is exactly the sort of legislation we need to build back better and level up the UK.”
We’ll be watching with interest to see when this legislation is tabled, and will continue to make our views clear on why it’s so critical, not least through our membership of the Flexible Working Taskforce. In the meantime, here’s a reminder of the government’s proposals – and how we felt they could be improved.
The proposals outlined in the BEIS consultation were certainly a step in the right direction. Amongst the changes on the table was to giving employees the right to ask for a flexible role from the moment they join an organisation – rather than waiting 26 weeks, as is currently the case.
But as we stated in our formal response to the consultation, our view here at Timewise is that this doesn’t go far enough. Why? Because it still puts all the onus on the employee to ask.
Rightly or wrongly, many candidates still fear that bringing up the question of flexible working might damage their chances, and so may decide not to ask. And given that, according to the TUC, 1 in 3 flexible working requests are turned down, they’re right to be sceptical. Additionally, our recent candidate research showed that 2 in 5 people who are seeking to work flexibly simply won’t apply if the advert doesn’t mention it.
Yet unfortunately, even after the huge, pandemic-driven shift in attitudes to remote and hybrid working, only 1 in 4 jobs are currently advertised as flexible.This narrows the options to the point of near invisibility, particularly for those who can’t work without a degree of flexibility, whether for caring, health or other reasons. Without a clear steer from the employer, many candidates won’t risk making a request, in case the answer is no. And they’re even less likely to risk leaving the job they’re in without being confident that they can get similar flex in their next one.
Instead, then, we believe that the legislation should take things a step further. We think employers should be required to consider whether a job can be made flexible, and if they feel it can’t, to explain why not. And critically, if it can be done flexibly, they should be required to state the flexibility on offer up front in the recruitment process.
At the time the consultation was launched, the government stated that it wasn’t the right time to take this extra step, noting that: “A number of respondents to the July 2019 consultation also suggested that requiring an employer to say whether a job is open to flexible working in the advert would drive the wrong response from those we were most looking to influence – those employers not culturally ready would simply default to ‘no’.”
But the world has changed so dramatically since 2019 that this felt to us, and still feels, like an overcautious approach. Organisations of all shapes and sizes are getting to grips with flexible working; even the NHS, Europe’s biggest employer, with some of the most complex working patterns around, now expects employing organisations to “consider how they promote the right to request flexibility from day one and the availability of flexible working options.” To put it bluntly, if not now, when?
It’s important to say that we are not suggesting that the government should just bring in the requirement to consider whether a job can be made flexible, and leave employers to get on with it. We appreciate that not all employers are ready to take that step; we have also previously noted the risk of ‘flex-washing’; that is, just saying a job is flexible without considering it properly or designing it to work that way.
Instead, in our response to the consultation, we called on the government to provide a package of support for employers, to help them create and implement flexible jobs and behaviours, along with any new legislation. This would include training managers in how to design flexible jobs and manage flexible teams. And in some sectors, in which flexibility is more complex to achieve, it would involve supporting them to test and pilot different approaches.
If this support were available, employers would be able to get to a position where considering whether a job can be made flexible, and what options are the most suitable, happens before the recruitment process. Where hiring managers proactively think this through. And where doing so is seen as an opportunity to attract the best talent, rather than a problem to be solved.
Whereas without investing in this approach, any right to request flexible working from day 1 – or to be automatically entitled to it, as some have called for – will be hugely risky, as organisations won’t be equipped to navigate the process.
Of course, it’s not just a question of training and testing; culture and behaviours also have a huge part to play. We know that organisations who already do this well develop company cultures in which flexible working is a strategy, not a policy, and is championed and celebrated by leaders.
To be frank, they’d be daft not to; the current recruitment crisis is creating a battle for talent, in which employers who can demonstrate that they value their employees’ home lives as much as their work lives are likely to have the edge. So it really is in everyone’s interests to get the right behaviours in place.
If you’re on board with the concept, but not sure what steps to take, we can help; we offer a range of consultancy services, including training line managers in flexible job design and supporting leaders to develop a flexible vision, principles and culture. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting expectantly for these proposals to make it back into the government’s legislative programme.
Published May 2022
With Covid restrictions now lifted across the UK, most organisations are opting for a hybrid blend of in-office and home-based working for non-frontline employees. But because of the in-out nature of the last two years, there has been limited scope to measure what works best.
At Timewise, we are curious about what has really changed, and how much will stick. We are also acutely aware of the inclusion and equity risks of poorly implemented hybrid arrangements, especially for key groups and frontline employees. And we believe that, in order to move successfully to a long-term hybrid model, organisations first need to understand how it is working on the ground.
It’s for these reasons that we have created our report, Beyond the hype of hybrid. Developed with the support of 14 organisations at varying stages of hybrid implementation, it explores the risks, challenges, benefits and successes of today’s on-the-ground hybrid practices, and sets out three critical priorities for businesses to focus on going forwards.
The report also includes advice from experts within the tech, legal and facilities sectors, and shares recommendations from Timewise about what businesses should do next to make the reality of hybrid live up to the hype.
By Emma Stewart, Development Director, Timewise
These days, most employers have moved beyond the question ‘is flexible working beneficial?’ It’s generally accepted that yes, it is, for both businesses and their people. But many employers in frontline sectors are still prone to thinking ‘it just won’t work in a firm like ours’. To change their mindsets, two hurdles must be overcome: first, proving that flexible working is possible for frontline workers; and secondly, proving that there will be a commercial return on the implementation costs.
Timewise has already proved the first of these over the last 6 years, through our pilots with trailblazing organisations in retail, teaching, construction, the NHS and domiciliary social care. And now we have pretty much proved the second – launching a new report that demonstrates how soon the cost of investment in flexible working can be recouped through savings on sickness absence and replacement costs related to high staff churn. The answer is that so little change is needed, so quickly, that investing in flexible job design really does seem like a no brainer for any frontline business employing around 200+ staff.
Frontline workers have been completely left behind in the hybrid working revolution that has happened during the pandemic. Unable to work from home, they have had to carry on commuting, in roles that are often low-paid and physically and mentally challenging. Little wonder that many employers are concerned about the increasing disparities between their frontline and office staff, and are showing an interest in ways of levelling up.
While location-based flexibility has become the norm, time-based flexibility (which might take the form of flexible start and finish times, greater input into shift times, or part-time working), can go some way towards providing equity for those unable to work from home. Timewise’s pilots in the five aforementioned sectors have explored the viability of flexible hours of work, and evidenced that frontline workers really do value having a greater sense of autonomy over their working lives.
This is backed up in independent research by Understanding Society, which shows that job satisfaction improves significantly as the degree of control over working hours increases. And the same research also points to a link between job satisfaction and staff retention: three quarters of workers with the lowest satisfaction levels say they would like to leave their job within the next year.
Timewise has shown that it IS possible to fix the lack of flexibility for frontline workers – in the sectors where we ran pilots, we were able to find ways to design frontline jobs with different working patterns that met operational requirements, maintained client expectations, and improved workers’ work-life balance and well-being.
The organisations which took part in the pilots have witnessed the potential that flexibility has; but vast numbers of employers in frontline sectors still struggle to see it as a commercial priority. Currently, 95% of frontline workers are unable to formally work flexi-time. There’s a huge amount of potential to improve job satisfaction and retention rates.
Of course, getting flexible working right requires staff consultation, new job design that meets business and employee needs, trialing the changes, and then evaluating and rolling out. The investment of time and money can seem daunting, so Timewise decided to map out how the return on investment might look, to prove the effort is likely to pay dividends.
Working together with the Institute for Employment Studies, we undertook break-even analysis to determine what level of savings would be needed over what timeframe, to cover the level of investment in each of our pilot programmes with firms in the five frontline sectors (retail, teaching, construction, the NHS and domiciliary social care). The savings we considered were those made through reduced staff absences and staff churn, and the results showed that very modest reductions would recoup the costs in just a few years.
For example, in a construction firm of 200 employees, 68 will typically leave each year (based on the average industry retention rate) at a total cost of £204,000. The break-even analysis showed that all it takes is for 7.5 fewer staff to leave each year for the investment in flexible working to be recovered within 3 years.
The same size firm will typically lose £177,000 in sickness absence per year, based on the industry average. So, alternatively, it takes just 1 day less of sick leave per person per year to fully recover the cost of investing in flexible working over 3 years.
And that is before any wider benefits resulting from improved flexible working are taken into account, such as improved well-being, increased diversity, wider access to talent and improvements in performance.
Moreover, for larger firms which are embedding flexible working across their whole workforce, the gains would scale up dramatically. Based on the calculations above, we estimate that employers with over 1000 workers could each save over £1m PER YEAR if they invest in flexible working programmes.
Surely, given the state of the labour market for these sectors, and rising inequality between office and frontline workers, this is the moment for action. Employers, industry and government can no longer afford to ignore the cost of not investing in flexible working. There is now a commercial as well as social imperative to consider how we can extend the autonomy of office workers to their frontline colleagues.
When frontline workers are given access to more flexible work, their job satisfaction is likely to improve, and they are more likely to stay in their jobs. These five sectors all suffer from acute skills shortages, and between them they employ over 8 million people. Improving retention will therefore have a massive impact on both business profits and working lives.
While employers in frontline sectors need to get flexible working onto their board agenda, intervention will also be needed at a higher level to catalyse change. The Government could help by creating a challenge fund for businesses in frontline sectors, to support workplace trials on flexible job design, in the same way that they provide business with funding for skills development. And industry bodies need to advocate flexible working – not just hybrid working – loudly and clearly, supporting employers with guidance and sharing practical case studies of good practice.
In the meantime, we at Timewise will continue to build more evidence of ‘what works in practice’, to help drive scalable action. This summer we will be launching a major new programme, supported by Impact on Urban Health and Barclays Life Skills, to track the long-term impact of taking a fairer more consistent approach to flexible working on workers well-being and business performance. We will be working with three large frontline employers across the NHS, construction and retail, and are delighted to announce our first partner will be the leading construction firm Sir Robert McAlpine, who will be testing and embedding flexible working for site based teams. If you’d like to find out more about our plans do get in touch.
The suggestion that under a hybrid model, it will be women who predominantly opt to work from home, to the detriment of their careers, is understandable from a statistical point of view. Data from 2018 suggested that two thirds of mothers are the primary carer for their children. And during the pandemic, women carried out two thirds more of the childcare than men.
But it’s not that simple; and employers who assume it is are doing themselves and their other employees a disservice. The fact is, there are groups other than parents for whom working from home may also be a preference. And for some, lockdown-enforced remote working actually levelled the playing field in terms of access, availability and visibility.
For these groups, being supported to work from home without being affected by proximity bias is essential; badly thought-out hybrid arrangements could send their inclusion backwards. Here’s a look at some of these groups, and why it is in employers’ interests to make sure they’re properly included.
It’s been noted that autism is associated with characteristics such as loyalty, honesty and productivity, as well as logical thinking patterns and creative thinking skills, all of which are hugely valuable to employers. But for people with this condition, and others such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD, the office environment is not necessarily conducive to working.
For example, office lighting and acoustics can be tricky to navigate for people who struggle with sensory overload. And the social aspects of the workplace, and the battle to commute, can be exhausting for those who don’t find interaction easy.
So working from home, at least some of the time, could help these employees stay focused, and produce their best work. This is particularly the case if they are supported to work remotely in a way that suits their preferred communication method – for example, audio-only may work best for some team members.
From access issues for employees who use wheelchairs, to cancer patients’ need to attend appointments during the working day, working from home can minimise some of the complications that employees with physical health issues have to juggle. It also frees up time and energy (which they may need to use sparingly) for them to focus on doing a good job.
And with recent reports suggesting that fewer than one in three patients who were hospitalised during the pandemic feel fully recovered a year later, there is every indication that long Covid may become a real issue for employees. The ability to work from home will be key to helping them stay in the workforce.
It’s also worth remembering that some illnesses aren’t physical, or visible; the needs of employees with mental health challenges must also be taken into account. For employees with depression or anxiety, there’s no one-size-fits-all; but being able to work in a calm quiet space at home may be gamechanging for some, reducing stress levels and supporting the production of high-quality work.
And given the impact the pandemic is having on mental health – with ONS data from May 2021 revealing that depression rates had doubled since it began – a growing number of employees are likely to be affected in this way, and require support from their employers to thrive.
According to Carers UK, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen the number of employees with caring responsibilities rise dramatically, with the proportion of carers in any workforce now one in four.
For these employees, working from home can mean being able to visit or support their relative in their lunch hour, or at times when they would otherwise have been commuting. This has a positive effect on their own wellbeing and stress levels, which in turn, affects their ability to deliver for their employers.
Clearly, then, being able to work from home at least some of the time is a bonus for many members of these groups. And the impact that this has on their ability to deliver is good for their bosses, too. But there’s much more to it than that.
Diversity and inclusion isn’t just a box-ticking exercise; there are good reasons why organisations should aim to include a variety of experiences, viewpoints and skills. It opens them up to a broader range of perspectives and opinions, limiting the risk of groupthink and bringing more unique ideas and solutions to any given problem. It contributes to creativity and competitiveness; offers access to a wider talent pool; and makes it easier to get the right skillset for the job.
So what does all this mean for you? It means that if you want a diverse, inclusive workforce, whose employees offer an equally diverse range of skills and experiences, you need to create a culture in which they can thrive.
That means understanding your employees’ individual circumstances – remembering that not all challenges are visible. It means taking the time to understand what working arrangements will help your people to do their best work, and designing solutions that ensure that everyone is included. Training and empowering managers to have 1:1 conversations with their team members about workplace flex is a key part of this.
And in today’s Covid-affected landscape, it means deliberately working to mitigate against proximity bias, putting processes in place to make sure that people who are in the office more frequently don’t receive preferential treatment. If you’re not sure how to design inclusive hybrid working arrangements, we can help; do get in touch to find out more.
Published January 2022
By Amy Butterworth, Consultancy Director, Timewise
After nearly two years spent working in pandemic conditions, it’s time for leaders to review the successes and challenges they’ve experienced with flex and make concrete improvements for the future. Taking a few simple steps now will help turn concerns about the great resignation, the two-tier workplace and fragmented teams into opportunities to create a motivated, cohesive workforce.
During the pandemic we’ve bounced backwards and forwards between working from home and returning to the office. It’s felt chaotic and stressful, but the upside of this uncertainty is that we’ve experienced a variety of new working patterns. Now is an ideal time to be candid about what is – and isn’t – working for your team.
The resolution: Implement a specific plan to improve flex working
Set an honest, collaborative tone by consulting with your teams on their experiences and openly sharing the constraints you’re facing. This will allow you to decide on and implement clear, measurable actions to meet these challenges. Could a change in working hours or regular, virtual 121s help flex work more smoothly? Find the processes and patterns that will make your resolution stick and commit to reviewing them regularly.
2. The challenge: Address the imbalance of a two-tier workforce
Thanks to the swift introduction of working from home, many companies are being confronted with an unintended, unequal two-tier workforce and the dissatisfaction that can bring. Frontline workers who are required to be present in the workplace can easily feel resentful towards the hybrid workers who remain at home without having to spend time or money commuting.
The resolution: Expand your flex working options
Hybrid working should not be the only flexible working option available to employees. It places those on the frontline in industries like catering, transport and tourism at a significant disadvantage. Forward-thinking companies now offer flexibility around the timing and amount of work undertaken, as well as the location. One of our clients realised their hybrid working plans wouldn’t suit their entire workforce so they now plan to trial part-time working, flexible shift patterns and the option to work anti-social hours as well.
3. The challenge: Engage detached, disheartened teams
Despite everyone’s best efforts, the last two years have seen the cancellation of team-building events and parties alongside the abandonment of communal office spaces, leaving workers feeling increasingly detached from their managers and colleagues. Maintaining shared goals and a sense of camaraderie is key to achieving targets and engaging employees – so what can be done?
The resolution: Set aside time to connect with your employees
The intensification of work has made it tempting for leaders and managers to spend the time that would have normally been spent on physically engaging with their teams on other tasks – but that’s a mistake. Even when you can’t bring people together in person, you need to ring-fence that time and find alternative ways to engage with them instead.
This could include simple day-to-day actions, such as building informal catch-up time into your virtual meetings and allocating team ownership for activities and goals. It could also be through fun, creative ideas such as learning circles, gif battles or online lunch dates. To engage a flexible workforce and improve team connection, you’ll need a range of in-person and virtual options.
4. The challenge: Ensure hybrid workers aren’t overlooked
Out of sight, really could mean out of mind when it comes to career progression for hybrid workers, particularly women who often combine flexible working hours with family and caring duties. LinkedIn has found that a third of UK business leaders and nearly half of UK workers are concerned about the favouritism of proximity bias – the tendency to promote workers visible in the office at the expense of those working from home.
The resolution: Give hybrid workers a clear career plan
To make sure hybrid workers have a fair chance of promotion, spend longer than usual defining, “what good looks like” with them and make sure you set measurable outcomes-based objectives. Challenge yourself to reward and recognise people for the outcomes they achieve rather than the number of hours they are present in the workplace.
5. The challenge: Turn the great resignation into a great opportunity
Triggered by a dramatic increase in remote working options, the great resignation of workers who quit their jobs in 2021 to find more flexible options looks set to continue. Rather than looking on this upheaval as a negative, this change to the working landscape can offer an opportunity for employers to attract loyal and highly skilled talent.
The resolution: Shout about your flex options to attract new talent
Design any jobs you’re advertising with flexible working built in, and make it obvious which options are on offer – whether that’s homeworking, part-time, variable hours or an alternative. Promising a vague flexible working culture is simply not enough to gain the trust of potential employees.
Action any or all of these resolutions and you’ll be well-placed to build a robust, motivated and united team, ready to take on whatever this year may bring. At Timewise we can equip you to create a successful flexible working strategy for the future of your business so you can thrive in 2022 and beyond; contact us to find out more.
Published January 2022
By Amy Butterworth, Consultancy Director, Timewise
The government’s decision in early December to implement Plan B sees employees once again being asked to work from home where possible. Even before the arrival of the Omicron variant, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van Tam had stated that we might not experience workplace normality until spring 2022. With the new variant in play, this is likely to be delayed further.
So, hybrid working is here to stay, but how is it working in practice? Here we explore some of the positive initiatives which are happening on the ground, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
From traditional 9-5 offices to innovative start-ups, everyone has been on a steep learning curve about hybrid working. As a result, we’re talking more openly about working patterns, wellbeing in the workplace and flexible opportunities, all of which can be supported by hybrid working.
And while the government’s proposed Flex from Day one legislation leaves the onus on the employee rather than the employer to suggest flexible working conditions, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
The humble lanyard has been a surprise hit in helping establish safe, flexible working. Some businesses, including our client Michelmores LLP have introduced a traffic light lanyard system to reflect the amount of contact employees feel comfortable in allowing. Wearing a red lanyard means, ‘Hi! I’m keeping my distance’, amber says, ‘Okay with talking but not touching’, while green indicates, ‘Okay with hugs and high fives’.
Similarly, the Department of Health and Social Care has provided downloadable badges saying, ‘Please give me space. Be kind. Thank you for understanding’, for those concerned about social distancing.
Feeling like part of a team is hugely important for achieving shared goals and boosting morale, but it’s hard to build those essential bonds on a screen. At the same time, some tasks require a level of focus that’s hard to achieve in the office. Hybrid working has freed up office-based employees to match the work to the location, working from home on deep-dive projects and coming in for connection and collaboration.
The gradual return to the office has given everyone more time to prepare for a hybrid working reality. Companies have been able to set up desk-booking systems to manage office availability, discover whether Zoom, Skype or Slack works best for their employees and adjust to the complications of managing teams in differing locations.
Of course, as well as the positives that are coming out of hybrid working, there’s no question that it is raising some unexpected challenges. When the pandemic started there was a great deal of goodwill between employers and employees. Now, as temporary measures become more permanent, there are many questions to face and answers to discover.
While knowledge workers such as accountants and lawyers can work productively from home, 46% of UK employees still don’t have access to flexible working according to CIPD research. Workers in areas like retail and construction often need to be physically present in their place of work; most office workers at BT, for example, will be able to work from home one or two days a week, but that flexibility won’t apply to the company’s engineers.
It’s a common dilemma for managers and, as we’ve noted previously, the risk is that a two-tier system could develop where location workers lose out in terms of pay, benefits and lifestyle.
Bank of England policymaker Catherine Mann has warned of a she-cession, with female employees becoming less visible and influential in the workplace because they opt to work from home. But loss of influence while working from home is also a risk for people with health issues, those in caring roles, introverts who thrive in quieter environments and indeed anyone who desires a better balance for their work and home lives.
Getting hybrid right means creating an inclusive culture and practices which takes all these groups into account.
Remote and hybrid patterns mean we need to consider how we are judging employee contributions and performance. Not being able to share an office means that you may not be aware of all their interactions with colleagues and clients. And how can other staff members give feedback for a 360° evaluation if they only see their co-worker during the occasional Zoom meeting?
Similarly, it’s important to consider whether employee objectives are focused on outputs or are subject to hybrid bias. And to review your own approach to evaluating performance; is it overly based on visibility rather than delivery?
Remote working has made it possible for people to compete for high pay, high prestige jobs in cities without having to live there or even commute, so how can suburban and rural companies compete? What unique benefit or EVP (employee value proposition) could be offered? What should happen to London weighting allowances? How should HR departments calculate market rate salaries?
These are tricky issues – but they cannot be ignored, because hybrid working is here to stay. Employers who want to attract and retain the brightest talent need to take action to ensure a motivated, successful team for the long term.
Published December 2021
By Amy Butterworth, Consultancy Director, Timewise
Bank of England economist Catherine Mann’s views on the impact of homeworking on women’s careers have certainly caused a stir. Speaking at an event hosted by Financial News magazine, Ms Mann noted that many women (particularly those with family responsibilities) were continuing to work from home, whereas men, for whom it was easier, were increasingly returning to the office.
As Ms Mann noted, this represents a real risk for female career progression: “There is the potential for two tracks. There’s the people who are on the virtual track and people who are on a physical track. And I do worry that we will see those two tracks develop, and we will pretty much know who’s going to be on which track, unfortunately.”
Yes, it’s a risk, but it’s not inevitable – and it’s not just women who are affected
Here at Timewise, we’d agree that this is a risk; indeed, it’s something we’ve been highlighting for some time. As we noted back in January 2021, unevenly implemented hybrid working and behavioural bias can lead to an influence gap between an office-based ‘in-crowd’ and their more remote-based peers.
And while women with family responsibilities are disproportionately likely to be affected, they’re not the only ones. Introverts, carers, or people with mental and physical health needs may also prefer to work from home, for very valid reasons. Not to mention those who don’t have any specific circumstances, but who have discovered that a balance of in-office and working from home has dramatically improved their wellbeing, and want to stick with it.
However, the good news is, this really isn’t inevitable. It is within employers’ power to mitigate the risk, by having a proactive, flexible working strategy in place, and developing an inclusive culture in which remote and in-office workers are equally respected and represented.
So employers who care about inclusion, diversity and career progression for all (which is as good for business as it is for individuals), or who want to have a wide talent pool to choose from when recruiting (which is critical in the current skills shortage era) need to step up and make it happen. Here’s how.
Instead of making office work the default, and working from home an option that people can take-or-leave, design a deliberate, considered hybrid approach for everyone. This could include setting an expectation that all members of the team whose jobs allow have a balance of in-office and WFH time – including senior leaders. Or requiring managers to have proactive conversations with their teams about ways of working and what patterns will work best.
And remember to make it worth people’s while to come in; office time should be spent on activities where in-person collaboration is helpful, rather than sitting at a desk with headphones on to drown out the noise. Look at what tasks are best carried out at each location, and encourage people to map out their week accordingly.
To do this well, we’d recommend skilling up your HR and management teams in flexible job design. We can help.
The chances are, your performance management processes were created for the pre-Covid era – which means they may not be fit for hybrid purpose. So, for example, make sure your performance management systems focus on outputs and outcomes rather than inputs. And create processes to make sure that projects are allocated fairly, rather than just to the person who happens to be sitting next to you.
We all got used to Zoom and Teams meetings during lockdown, but when some of the team are in and others are out, you need to use different tactics to create an even playing field. For example, we suggest allocating an in-the-room buddy to those dialling in to a hybrid meeting, to advocate for them in the room and make sure their views are heard.
It’s also worth thinking about other key elements of the employee lifecycle which may need adapting to a hybrid working pattern, such as recruitment, onboarding and training.
And it’s not just about meetings; it’s also worth remembering that supporting a hybrid team requires different communication plans and management skills, so managers need to be trained to do it well.
Understanding whether this risk is materialising into a reality in your company is something you’ll need to keep an eye on. So we’d recommend putting in place a process for monitoring the progression and retention of your flexible workers.
To do this – and to do it well – will doubtless require an investment of your time and energy. But it’s worth it on so many levels – indeed, we’d argue that you can’t afford not to.
If you are serious about diversity and inclusion, and linked issues such as the gender pay gap, you need to create equality of opportunity for colleagues for whom being permanently in the office isn’t ideal. If you believe that having happy, well-balanced employees is as good for the business as it is for them, and want to attract, keep, and nurture brilliant people, you need to offer them the flexibility they say they want.
Ideally this would be broken down into the different forms of flex (hybrid, WFH only, part-time) so you can track the impact on different cohorts. This will help you take action against the type of two-track career progression that Mann cautioned about, and create flexible career paths to enable your talent to thrive.
And if you are keen to be seen as a forward-looking employer, you need to develop a new way of working, rather than reverting to pre-Covid norms. Your brand reputation – and your staff – are counting on you to do just that.
Published November 2021
The crisis in sectors like retail and hospitality has led to huge numbers of part-time jobs simply disappearing. There’s also been an increase in the number of people switching from part-time to full-time work, largely due to the need to compensate for cuts in family income caused by furlough and redundancy. As a result, the rate of women in part-time jobs has fallen to the lowest level since records began.
Whilst the pandemic has thrust flexible working into the spotlight, and driven a huge increase in the uptake of remote working, the same can’t be said for the nation’s favourite form of flex: part time.
So part-time is taking a post-Covid hit, and this matters. Why? Because for many people, and particularly those who have caring responsibilities, or health issues, the lack of availability of part-time jobs can be the difference between working and not.
And it also matters from a business perspective. Employee demand for part-time is strong (a third of men and a quarter of women want to reduce their hours post-pandemic) and offering it is a sure-fire way to tackle strategic issues such as diversity and inclusion, wellbeing and the gender pay gap, as well as talent attraction in a time of candidate shortage.
We invited three of our Power List alumni to join Timewise leaders on a panel at our recent roundtable: TBWA’s Sarah Tate; Lee Clements, from LSEG, and EY’s Victoria Price. All at senior leadership level, they discussed how they are making sure that part-time doesn’t get forgotten in the rush towards remote – and how their organisations are benefitting.
Accept and overcome the barriers to part-time
Although the business case for part-time is increasingly understood, our panel felt that various barriers, real or otherwise, were still getting in the way of change. Here are the barriers they identified, and how to overcome them:
Prioritise getting the best out of people
From the increased focus on ESG strategies to the adoption of the United Nations Social Development Goal 8, looking after your people is rightfully becoming a higher priority for businesses. And offering flexible and part-time roles is a key way to do so.
Our panel agreed that there are some specific people management approaches that will help you encourage and grow your part-time employee base:
Adapt your own processes and attitudes
Finally, you’ll need to make sure that the processes you have in place are as suitable for part-time candidates and employees as they are for full-time ones. Our panel highlighted the following areas to consider:
It’s in everyone’s interests to increase access to part-time – follow our panel’s advice and build a culture and framework that will deliver for you and your employees. And if you need any help, please get in touch.
There’s little doubt that the much-predicted skills shortage has arrived. A devastating combination of factors, including Brexit and Covid-19, have led to a recruitment crisis from which no sector is immune, leaving, 70% of businesses facing difficulties hiring staff.
Here at Timewise, we’ve long been clear that offering flexible working is a vital way to gain an edge in this fight for talent. And the business world agrees, with the British Chambers of Commerce’s Jane Gratton noting that “Adopting more remote and flexible working patterns will help firms attract skills from a wider talent pool.”
But while forward-looking employers are listening, and trying to be as open and inclusive as possible in terms of the flexibility they offer, there’s a danger that their approach may be putting candidates off.
Our recent research report, Gaining an Edge in the Fight for Talent, set out to show leaders, recruitment professionals and employer brand specialists how to position their organisations to attract a diverse, inclusive workforce. We surveyed candidates registered on Timewise Jobs, exploring their attitudes towards job seeking and their behaviours during the process.
Some of what we learned wasn’t news to us; the fact that flexibility is more important than salary for many, for example, or that part-time was the arrangement of choice for our candidates (with 80% wanting to work four days per week or fewer). And these are all factors that employers should consider when planning a recruitment strategy.
But what we weren’t expecting to hear was this: One in 10 of our candidates would not apply for a job that is advertised as flexible in generic terms, and a further 3 in 10 would be cautious about doing so. Which means that as many as 40% of applicants are likely to be put off by a vaguely worded flexible offer.
So why is this? Well, firstly, candidates are concerned that unspecific wording may be what we call ‘flex washing’; that is, paying lip service to flexibility to attract applications, but not necessarily offering it in a genuine way. Additionally, candidates who have specific needs, such as only being able to work four days per week, may be unwilling to waste time applying for a job that doesn’t obviously match. And some also fear that they may be discriminated against if they request a specific job pattern that hasn’t been mentioned up front.
Instead, candidates tell us, employers who want to encourage applications by offering flexibility need to do so visibly and clearly. This means:
Of course, as well as saying it, you need to show it. Employer brand is increasingly important in the fight for talent, and candidates will be doing their research. So making sure your approach to flexible working is highlighted on your website and other communications is key. Advertising on a flex-focused jobs board such as Timewise Jobs is also a good way to demonstrate your commitment to flexible working.
You can find out more about what candidates think and how to position your recruitment to win them over within the report. But one thing is certain; however well-intentioned it might be, talking in general terms about the flexibility on offer is not the right place to start.
Published September 2021
